Reliable diagnostics using molecular methods requires control materials that, among other things, allow comparison of results between laboratories. The use of control materials is very important for the development of new tests, for the accurate quantification of genetic material, and to account for and compensate for human error during the analysis. Digital polymerase chain reaction (dPCR), which has connectivity to the highest metrological level, to SI units, is used to evaluate nucleic acid control materials. It allows absolute quantification of nucleic acids, which means that it does not require a calibration curve for quantification. The method is also reproducible, accurate and less susceptible to inhibition than real-time PCR (qPCR). Therefore, dPCR has a major impact on research and diagnostic applications.
In this master’s thesis, we prepared, evaluated, and used control material for quantification of monkeypox virus by qPCR. First, we prepared control material from synthetic DNA in three different backgrounds: H2O, aqueous solution of salmon sperm DNA (ssH2O) and aqueous solution of calf thymus DNA (ctH2O), each stored at two temperatures (-20 °C and -80 °C). Using a dPCR method, we assigned a value to the material, evaluated its homogeneity between and within the sample and tested long-term and short-term stability. We conclude that the synthetic DNA control material is the most stable in the ssH2O background when stored at -80 °C, so we used these conditions when preparing the genomic DNA (gDNA) control material. The gDNA control material maintained homogeneity and concentration under these conditions. When evaluating gDNA material, we also compared two dPCR platforms (QX200 Droplet Digital PCR (Bio-Rad) and Naica System 6-color Digital PCR (Stilla Technologies)), which gave comparable results.
Once we had prepared the control material, we used it to quantify monkeypox and vaccinia virus using the qPCR method. The results of virus quantification were then compared with the dPCR method. Although there is a high bias among the results, the results for monkeypox virus are comparable because the concentration of the virus itself was low and it was important that the virus was detected at all. Synthetic DNA was used for the calibration curve, so the comparison of samples was not optimal, because the amplification efficiency can be different for samples of different complexity.
|